Space Exploration Looks Even More Awesome in Lego

NASA's Curiosity rover is probably making some kind of awesome discovery on Mars as you read this.

The USSR launched Sputnik in October 1957. The tiny satellite spent three months circling the Earth, scaring Americans into a Space Race that culminated with the Apollo program that landed men on the moon.

Neil Armstrong made history when he became the first man to step foot on our natural satellite. The historic event was watched by an estimated 600 million people in 1969.

The footprints left behind by Apollo astronauts represent America's prowess in space technology. Their historic and sentimental value makes them some of the best candidates for preservation, an idea recently suggested in Congress through the creation of a national park on the moon.

The twin Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity long outlived their initial shelf life of three months. Though Spirit has reached its final resting place, Opportunity is still roving around and even making discoveries about ancient water on Mars.

A future space-shuttle-like rocket takes off from a launch pad, bound for the Helium-3 mines of the moon.

Much further in the future, mankind has formed a Star Trek-like Federation devoted to space exploration. Here an ship called the Explorer is prepped for another mission.

There’s no denying that two of the greatest things humankind has done is go to space and invent Legos. Therefore, combining these two passions can only yield something amazing.

And that’s exactly what has come from two brick-based artists named Peter Reid and Tim Goddard in a book called LEGO Space: Building the Future. In it, they beautifully render important scenes from the last half-century of spaceflight. Their Lego recreations show the launch of Sputnik, Neil Armstrong’s footprints on the moon, and incredible robotic missions such as Voyager and Curiosity, seen roaming through a tiny Martian sandpit in the image above.

That’s not all. The bulk of Reid and Goddard’s book is devoted to a science-fiction exploration of mankind’s potential future among the stars. The Lego minifig astronauts of tomorrow find themselves building moon and Mars bases, working with intelligent robots, constructing wormholes to distant worlds, and even battling evil aliens and mad scientists that have infiltrated their ranks. All of this is illustrated in detailed photographs of Lego brick spaceships and stations. There’s even instructions on how to build your own version of some of the vehicles.

LEGO Space: Building the Future will be out at the end of October.

All images copyright Peter Reid and Tim Goddard. Reproduced with permission of No Starch
Press.